"Yes; and when he put his hand on my arm," she continued, very proud of the spirit she had shown, "I just flew at him savagely. Oh, I can be fierce when I wish. He will never touch me again, you may depend on it." She then gave the details of the scene with Williams, dwelling proudly upon the fact of her successful retreat to bed, and meekly telling of what she called her jealousy and wickedness. She had asked forgiveness of God, and now she would ask it of Dic, evidently believing that if God and Dic would forgive her wicked jealousy, no one else had any right to complain. She was justly proud of the manner in which she had accomplished the retreat movement, and really felt that she was becoming dare-devilish to a degree seldom, if ever, equalled by an undutiful daughter. "You don't know how wicked I can be," she said, in great earnestness. "I know how good and beautiful you are," answered Dic. "I know you are the one perfect human being in all the world--and it is useless for me to try to tell you how much you are to me. When I am alone, I am better able to realize what I feel, but I cannot speak it." "Oh, Dic, is it really true?" asked the girl. "Neither can I tell how--how--" but those emotions which cannot be spoken in words, owing to the poverty of our language, must be expressed otherwise. God or Satan taught the proper method to Adam and Eve, and it has come down to us by patristic succession, so that we have it to-day in all its pristine glory and expressiveness. Some have spoken against the time-honored custom, and claim to mark its decadence. Connecticut forbade it by law on Sundays, and frowned upon it "Fridays, Saturdays, and all"; but when it dies, the Lord will whitewash this old earth and let it out as a moon to shine upon happier worlds where the custom still lives. Rita and Dic did not disturb Mrs. Bays, and she, unconscious of his presence, did not disturb them until Mr. Bays returned. When Mrs. Bays learned that Dic had been in the kitchen an hour, she felt that the highest attribute of the human mind had been grossly outraged. But her husband was about to ask a favor of Dic, and she limited her expression of dissent to an exhibition of frigid, virtuous dignity, worthy of the king's bench, or Judge Anselm Fisher himself.